Undead Rogue

It's alive!

So! I've found a new thing I like to do

Which is!

Hearthstone cards! - I created this card in a twitter give away!

So this is the first - in a hopefully long series of cards I'll create! - Obviously these aren't official cards.

Closed for commissions.

As I recently got involved with a Blizzard Arcade project, touching up some art work, and I was offered a 2000 dollars freelance job, I have decided to stop my commissions.

University is taking up most of my time as well, so I doubt I'll be doing commissions again any time soon.


But more news on that front in a couple of months.


I still need to find the time to write about that Karazhan Review.

US more open minded than EU?

I have been leading my only Druid guild for more than 8 years now. I have experienced a lot, have had a lot of fun and received a lot of input. 

Some of those input and experiences are, that US wow players seem to be more interested in alternative gameplay than Europeans. On the other Hans, Europeans seem to be more competitive than the US.

Obviously these are massive generalizations and they are purely based on one single elements, which is how people have responded to my only Druid guild over the years. 

More than three quarters contacted me regarding my guild, are US. More US seem to be appealed to the idea of only druids than EU. 

it is a strange one, and a bit sad as well. Currently my guild has not grown for about half a year, the size remain the same. It is unfortunate, as I know many are interested in joining but can't, due to the split between EU and US. It somewhat also makes me wonder, how come the EU don't find single class guilds appealing. Perhaps it is the competitive and gear aspect which drives a lot of EU, while maybe for the US it is the fun factor and the lifestyle of wow, so to speak.

Again, these are very generalized, and I know all types of people are everywhere. But it still makes me wonder sometimes what my guild would have become, in case it was not EU but American?

That said, maybe it would be a possibility to launch a Druids of the Beast on the US one day, in case the possibility, support and help arrives.

Just thoughts of the night.

No new content announced in WoD to enhance multiplayer

Warlords of Draenor looks to be an epic expansion, with a much larger scale than Pandaria. All the announcements were awesome, no doubt.

However, I cannot help thinking about a slightly thing which disappointed me. No announcements or features were regarding multiplayer. The garrison is a solo-experience, and even raid finder seems higher on the priority list, as it also got tweaks for the better. But no new multiplayer features were announced.

Blizzard wants more people to play together, but it seems to me, they shoot themselves a bit in the foot, by continuously adding solo-experience content. I am not saying it is a bad thing, and it should definitely be in there. But the balance between Multiplayer experiences, and solo experiences keeps getting shifted towards solo, as the multiplayer part, haven't seen any new features since Cataclysm.

In Cataclysm we got RBGs, which encouraged more people to play BGs together. We also had guild levels, guild achievements, and tons of things to do as a guild, as you could unlock rewards and feel like you achieved something, together with others.

Many of my guild members, come online only when we are going to raid - then people go offline. Members have told me, they only play this game because of the guild, and it lacks content we could do as a guild. Whether it would be collecting items, experience or something else together. It just seems a bit like the "together" part keeps getting further down the priority list at Blizzard. Transmogrification runs, just doesn't so it for me anymore. I want to get back out there, whether it's killing 500.000 critters with my guildies, or craft certain items.

The introduction of Raid finder, pet battles, brawlers, etc. have all enhanced solo play. (And they're all great implementations, don't get me wrong) We have just not gotten any multiplayer features since Cataclysm, maybe apart from Flexraid which has been great.

Now we are getting even more solo-content, despite multiplayer has lacking for years.
The garrisons are really great - And obviously everyone should have the chance of having a garrison, so you wouldn't be forced to join a really good guild, to be in a garrison. It seems to bring a lot of new features, gameplay and fun into the game, such as pet-battles did. But again, the fun is being enhanced for the people, who like to play the game alone. What about the ones, who don't want to play alone? Sure, I can show my garrison to my friends, but what is the fun in that?

It is like showing off a house you built in Minecraft to your friend, but you have no possibility to build a house, together with a friend, which in my opinion is the funnier part.

I prefer playing Wow with friends, and honestly, since late Cataclysm it becomes harder and harder to "play-with-friends" - The purpose of playing together seems to slowly being vanishing, as the balance in the game, keeps getting shifted towards the solo-experience, without any love for multiplayer. (apart from the world-BG, but if it's auto-grouping like GrimBatol, then it's a pvp-raidfinder)

It is a big problems, for the ones wishing to experience the game with others - and I must admit, my time spend in Wow is less and less, as I do not feel committed to the game as I don't need to be committed to others. Even as a guild master.

If Blizzard manage to get around Guild/Multiplayer implementations, and re-create the balance between Solo-play and Multiplayer.  ("Hey, you can show your garrison to your friends" - that doesn't do it for me) - Then WoD will most likely, look to be the best expansion ever.

If not - well I doubt I can keep myself interested in the game for a longer period of time. If I want to play alone, I play Hearthstone or other games, not Wow. The idea of "guilds" is slowly vanishing now a days.

Guild-recruitment is currently useless and how do we fix it - Ellaborated

As a guild master you might have filled out and used the in-game Recruitment Function in the Info tab of your guild. You can list your guild, with descriptions and list it.

However when you browse for a guild 80% of all guilds have level 1 and below 10 members. Which means anyone who is looking for a decent guild, either has to spend hours on it - or give up and avoid using the recruitment-system. And honestly - not many uses it now a days, because of those reasons.

My idea to fixing it:

On every Wednesday when the servers are down - reset the guild-lists too. Then it gets removed and updated weekly. That means all the inactive guilds filling up the list - which obviously no one wants to join, as not even the GMs are online - will go away.

And the ones with active recruiting will be on the list!

In that way it is easier to use, and more people would by the end of the day use it. More would look in it for a guild - and more would successfully find a guild.

As a guild master I really wouldn't mind re-posting my guild every Wednesday, whenever I take in recruits.

At least that would be the easiest way, in my opinion to fix this problem.

Seriously?!

It is a shame there is a recruitment function in the game - but it has been completely broken since it was implemented, due to everyone at the time wanted their own guild and/or make money off a guild bank.

When reading through the list of guilds, most of them has indeed level 1 with less than 10 members - and a message saying "Everyone is welcome" - "all can join" 

As if people would automatically join a guild - just because it's on the list.

Leading a guild takes work and is difficult - the guild recruitment is merely a tool to assist a GM - unfortunately that tool is broken, and would be a nice addition to current tools in case it actually worked.

Many guilds would benefit of the system, and so would members. Some might be looking for a specific guild - and if that guild isn't posting recruitment messages in General chat - then it's just difficult to know.

The time and effort it would take fixing the list, would indeed make up for the positive sides of this function - that has been in the game for a long time now - but never really worked.

These are just a fraction of what was on this server - which is a medium populated server.

Another Twitter Give-away

I haven't done a give-away for several months, but today I felt like doing another Lunch-Give away.

I spend about 45min creating this Orc Death Knight named EvilRobot.

Note: I do NOT take free requests, neither do I have a give-away list. The give-away on twitter is a random happening, first come first served for the ones following me on Twitter.

The quality of work is also mixed.

If you wish your own piece of art work of your MMO character, please check out my commission page :)